Queed eBook

“Mr. Boggs’s point,” said Mr. Hickok,
a third director, who looked something like James
E. Winter, “is exceedingly well taken. A
United States Senator from a Northern State is a guest
in my house for Reunion week. The Senator reads
the editorials in the Post with marked attention,
has asked me the name of the writer, and has commended
some of his utterances most highly. The Senator
tells me that he never reads the editorials in his
own paper—­a Boston paper, Mr. Hopkins, by
the bye—­his reason being that they are
never worth reading.”

Mr. Shorter and Mr. Porter, fourth and fifth directors,
were much struck with Mr. Hickok’s statement.
They averred that they had made a point of reading
the Post editorials during the Colonel’s
absence, with a view to sizing up the assistant, and
had been highly pleased with the character of his
work.

Mr. Wilmerding, a sixth director, declared that the
Colonel had, in recent months, more than once remarked
to him that the young man was entirely qualified to
be his successor. In fact, the Colonel had once
said that he meant to retire before a great while,
and, of course with the directors’ approval,
turn over the editorial helm to the assistant.
Therefore, he, Mr. Wilmerding, had pleasure in nominating
Mr. Queed for the position of editor of the Post.

Mr. Shorter and Mr. Porter said that they had pleasure
in seconding this nomination.

Mr. Charles Gardiner West, a seventh director, was
recognized for a few remarks. Mr. West expressed
his intense gratification over what had been said
in eulogy of Mr. Queed. This gratification, some
might argue, was not wholly disinterested, since it
was Mr. West who had discovered Mr. Queed and sent
him to the Post. To praise the able editor
was therefore to praise the alert, watchful, and discriminating
director. (Smiles.) Seriously, Mr. Queed’s
work, especially during the last few months, had been
of the highest order, and Mr. West, having worked
beside him more than once, ventured to say that he
appreciated his valuable qualities better than any
other director. If the Colonel had but lived
a year or two longer, there could not, in his opinion,
be the smallest question as to what step the honorable
directors should now take. But as it was, Mr.
West, as Mr. Queed’s original sponsor on the
Post, felt it his duty to call attention to
two things. The first was the young man’s
extreme youth. The second was the fact that he
was a stranger to the State, having lived there less
than two years. At his present rate of progress,
it was of course patent to any observer that he was
a potential editor of the Post, and a great
one. But might it not be, on the whole, desirable—­Mr.
West merely suggested the idea in the most tentative
way, and wholly out of his sense of sponsorship for
Mr. Queed—­to give him a little longer chance
to grow and broaden and learn, before throwing the
highest responsibility and the final honors upon him?